The results of the morning dye vats. Decided to try dyeing the Wensleydale in the grease. Results were good. It just took some Orvus paste and several hot rinses to clean it all up. The fun part was watching the colors brighten up and start to shine as all the lanolin washed away.

Tencel and linen spun around a wool core. Very fuzzy soft. Quick Technique: hand card tencel down with bleached Irish linen. Pull the fiber sheet from the cards (do not roll off). While spinning the wool roving, continuously peel off airy clumps of the tencel linen blend from the carded sheets and allow to loosely wrap around the spinning wool.

The results from today’s dye pot. I’m really liking the fuzzy brown/black/grey in the front. It was a new spinning technique I used to wrap teased Wensleydale around a black Shetland wool core then plied with mohair. Very plump and fuzzy. Basketball sized skein. Might have to name that one ‘Monster’!

My craft room is overflowing with wool. I really need to spin more!

The postman was my favorite person today. Four back issues of Selvedge arrived. Hours and hours of inspiration ahead!

The sink is full of yarn this morning.

I’ve added a new tutorial to the website “How to Spin Uncarded Wensleydale Wool Locks“. The instructions should work for other fibers that grow in curly locks: Cotswold, Lincoln, Mohair, Teesdale, etc.

It’s a brief tutorial and assumes you already know how to spin carded wool.

Enjoy!

I have succumbed to peer pressure and joined Twitter. And for those who may not know exactly what that means…essentially it’s like a mini pictureless blog you can update in 140 characters or less. People can sign up to get updates (like RSS updates) of everything you post. Yes, it’s a bit ego-ccentric…but fun. You can see what all the fuss is about at http://twitter.com and my posts are at http://twitter.com/houndscroft

On the fiber front, here are pictures from last week’s sheep shearing. Check out how HUGE Holstein’s (one of our Icelandic sheep) fleece is all spread out!! Too cool. When I shear, the wool is all in little clumps. This is the first time I’ve ever had the fleeces all come off in one piece like a rug. It made skirting the wool really easy…still very dirty…but easier than I thought it would be.

For the past 3 years I have sheared my own sheep (with varying degrees of success). It’s hard work. The sun is always hot, the lanolin is sticky and since I am not a professional it takes FOREVER. After about 18 to 20 hours (spread over several weekends) I always have beautiful scissor clipped fleeces…but the sheep would look like they had been subjected to haircut by weed eater and I would have bruises, cuts and sore muscles all over my body. But not this year. Sometime back in November a nice guy called and offered to shear my sheep. At first I wasn’t sure, but after talking to him awhile, I thought “Why not. At least try it once.” So we made plans for this spring.

Well today was the day. Martin drove down from Indiana (about 70 miles one way) and arrived just after 9:00am. We already had the sheep in the barn, so after just 15 minutes of set up time he was already working on the first sheep. Jim and I stood by and put the fleeces in bags as he finished. By 11:30am he was done. By noon, he was gone and headed to another farm. He had an appointment to do another 18, and then a pair of llamas before heading back home. Amazing.

So here are the pictures. Despite their embarrassment at being on their backs, I think the sheep definitely prefer the neat 10 minute clip to my 2 hour hack job that leaves them looking like they have some molting disease. I know I definitely do! And they didn’t seem the least bit traumatized…as soon as they were released they had that “whatever” look on their face and within seconds were back to grazing.

Here is everyone waiting patiently in the barn.

Martin shearing Erec.

The gang all sheared and enjoying a nice afternoon breeze.

There are times when an idea for a new yarn just materializes and the only thing left to do is gather materials and spin it before the idea slips away. Other times something completely non-fiber related is the inspiration for a texture, shape or color and then the idea is built slowly while considering how to use the inspiration. Most often, yarns are the result of the materials on hand. Fibers and dyed wools are mulled over, things come together, others are discarded, until a final pile of materials become the base of a yarn whose end result is unknown until the yarn is spun, set and dried…

…and then there is the blank beginning. Painters have their empty white canvas. Writers have their blank white page. Spinners? Well, we have piles of white roving. Nothing in a pile of white roving will ever inspire a yarn. Staring at it for hours will yield absolutely nothing. The fiber is completely mute…not giving even the slightest hint what it might like to become. Sigh.

So, like painters and writers discovered long ago, sometimes it is best to just start. No idea, no inspiration, just do something and trust that the creative process will spark an idea. Put some paint on a canvas, put some words on a page…or, in this case…put some wool on the wheel.

So here is the beginning…

White icelandic roving and a pile of white wensleydale curls. Who knows what may lay ahead.